U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) introduced the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) 3.0 to increase the funding authorization levels for the CARA programs enacted in 2016 and put in place additional policy reforms to help combat the opioid epidemic that has worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. CARA was a bipartisan, national effort designed to ensure that federal resources were devoted to evidence-based education, treatment and recovery programs that work. In FY 2021, CARA programs were funded at $782 million. Several key provisions of CARA 2.0 were enacted as part of the SUPPORT Act on October 24, 2018. CARA 3.0 builds on these efforts by increasing the funding authorization levels and laying out new policy reforms to strengthen the federal government’s response to this crisis. Read more
- Ann Tucker